I bought the 5D2 with the kit 24-105 lens a month ago and athough I have not explored all the options that it offers, here are some general comments (I also have a Canon G9, which I will keep). The 5D2 is very impressive and the lens is very good indeed (stop down from f5.6 to perhaps f11 to get the best performance). I am not bothered by having an aperture of f4 - any bigger and the lens would be very heavy. Image stabilization works great - I doubt I would buy a lens without it. The absence of a pop-up flash is a negative - I often use a bit of fill flash (I use it with my G9, which I usually carry with me). I would have liked a live histogram (as on the G9 or similar) without having to go into "Live Mode" (presumably not possible on a DSLR, as a second sensor would be needed). Re the self-timer - it is still set when the camera is turned off and then back on. I would have preferred it to be cancelled when I turn off the camera (as on the G9). The high-definition video is amazing, but it puts great demands on a computer. I would also prefer Canon to avoid saving video as MOV files and instead use AVI (which offers a thumbnail in Explorer). The 5D has provision for an external microphone and greatly improves audio, as it does with a camcorder. The Canon software Digital Photo Professional is very good, although I usually convert CR2 files to DNG, which DPP can't handle.